As used herein, the term ‘dynamic range’ (DR) may relate to a capability of the human psychovisual system (HVS) to perceive a range of intensity (e.g., luminance, luma) in an image, e.g., from darkest darks to brightest brights. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘scene-referred’ intensity. DR may also relate to the ability of a display device to adequately or approximately render an intensity range of a particular breadth. In this sense, DR relates to a ‘display-referred’ intensity. Unless a particular sense is explicitly specified to have particular significance at any point in the description herein, it should be inferred that the term may be used in either sense, e.g. interchangeably.
As used herein, the term high dynamic range (HDR) relates to a DR breadth that spans the some 14-15 orders of magnitude of the HVS. For example, well adapted humans with essentially normal vision (e.g., in one or more of a statistical, biometric or ophthalmological sense) have an intensity range that spans about 15 orders of magnitude. Adapted humans may perceive dim light sources of as few as a mere handful of photons. Yet, these same humans may perceive the near painfully brilliant intensity of the noonday sun in desert, sea or snow (or even glance into the sun, however briefly to prevent damage). This span though is available to ‘adapted’ humans, e.g., those whose HVS has a time period in which to reset and adjust.
In contrast, the DR over which a human may simultaneously perceive an extensive breadth in intensity range may be somewhat truncated, in relation to HDR. As used herein, the terms ‘visual dynamic range’ or ‘variable dynamic range’ (VDR) may individually or interchangeably relate to the DR that is simultaneously perceivable by a HVS. As used herein, VDR may relate to a DR that spans 5-6 orders of magnitude. Thus while perhaps somewhat narrower in relation to true scene referred HDR, VDR nonetheless represents a wide DR breadth. As used herein, the term ‘simultaneous dynamic range’ may relate to VDR.
Until fairly recently, displays have had a significantly narrower DR than HDR or VDR. Television (TV) and computer monitor apparatus that use typical cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD) with constant fluorescent white back lighting or plasma screen technology may be constrained in their DR rendering capability to approximately three orders of magnitude. Such conventional displays thus typify a standard dynamic range (SDR), sometimes also referred to as “‘low’ dynamic range” or “LDR,” in relation to VDR and HDR. As used herein, the terms “standard dynamic range” and “low dynamic range,” and/or their corresponding abbreviations “SDR” and “LDR” may be used synonymously and/or interchangeably.
Advances in their underlying technology however allow more modern display designs to render image and video content with significant improvements in various quality characteristics over the same content, as rendered on less modern displays. For example, more modern display devices may be capable of rendering high definition (HD) content and/or content that may be scaled according to various display capabilities such as an image scaler. Moreover, some more modern displays are capable of rendering content with a DR that is higher than the SDR of conventional or standard displays.
For example, some modern LCD displays have a backlight unit (BLU) that comprises a light emitting diode (LED) array. The LEDs of the BLU array may be modulated separately from modulation of the polarization states of the active LCD elements. This dual modulation approach is extensible (e.g., to N-modulation layers wherein N comprises an integer greater than two), such as with controllable intervening layers between the BLU array and the LCD screen elements. Their LED array based BLUs and dual (or N−) modulation effectively increases the display referred DR of LCD monitors that have such features.
Such “HDR displays” as they are often called (although actually, their capabilities may more closely approximate the range of VDR) and the DR extension of which they are capable, in relation to conventional SDR displays represent a significant advance in the ability to display images, video content and other visual information. The color gamut that such an HDR display may render may also significantly exceed the color gamut of more conventional displays, even to the point of capably rendering a wide color gamut (WCG). Scene related HDR or VDR and WCG image content, such as may be generated by “next generation” movie and TV cameras, may now be more faithfully and effectively displayed with the “HDR” displays (hereinafter referred to as ‘HDR displays’). As used herein, a statement to the effect that a first color gamut is “greater than” a second color gamut relates to the first color gamut being broader, deeper, larger, or having a greater bit depth than the second color gamut. As used herein, a statement to the effect that a second color gamut is “less than” a first color gamut relates to the second color gamut being narrower, shallower, lower or having less of a bit depth than the first color gamut.
As with the SVC and HDTV technologies, extending image DR typically involves a bifurcate approach. For example, scene referred HDR content that is captured with a modern HDR capable camera may be used to generate an SDR version of the content, which may be displayed on conventional SDR displays. Generating the SDR version from the captured HDR version may involve applying a global tone mapping operator (TMO) to intensity (e.g., luminance, luma) related pixel values in the HDR content. To conserve bandwidth or for other considerations, transmission of the actual captured HDR content may not be a best approach.
Thus, a global inverse tone mapping operator (iTMO), inverted in relation to the original TMO, may be applied to the SDR content version that was generated, which allows a version of the HDR content to be predicted. The predicted HDR content version may be compared to originally captured HDR content. For example, subtracting the predicted HDR version from the original HDR version may generate a residual image. An encoder may send the generated SDR content as a base layer (BL), and package the generated SDR content version, the residual image, and the iTMO or other predictors as an enhancement layer (EL).
Sending the EL, with its SDR content, residual and predictors, in a bitstream typically consumes less bandwidth than would be consumed in sending the HDR content directly in the bitstream. Compatible decoders that receive the bitstream sent by the encoder may decode and render the SDR on conventional displays. Compatible decoders however may also use the residual image and the iTMO predictors to compute a predicted version of the HDR content therefrom, for use on more capable displays. It is the bandwidth economy that, at least in part, has made the two-layer BL/EL approach so ubiquitous in codecs that perform HDR to SDR and SDR to HDR conversions (as well as with HDTV and SVC).
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.